Title: Spirit's Fall
Series: The Blood Toll Saga
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood/manga
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: Mature
Pairings: one-sided Edward Elric/Original Female Character
Warnings: Ed's potty mouth, Vampire!Edward Elric, blood, canon-typical violence, questionable morality, character death
Summary: Born too early, Ed and Al don't manage to find a way to return Al to his body before his soul leaves the armour for good. Ed will do anything to save his brother, including making a deal with the closest thing to the devil he believes in. Can he keep his humanity long enough to save his brother, or are they both doomed to the separate hells that Ed's deal has trapped them within?

Disclaim Her: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Arakawa Hiromu and various publishers. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

A/N: I...really have no good explanation for this foolery, other than that my muse really wanted to write immortal!Ed. (Also, slightly bonkers!Ed, which I 100% blame on metisket's demon alchemist series.) I went back and forth a bit on what to do with Al – he was never going to be dead, and he isn't in this, I promise – before finally settling on something...weird, I guess. Idk. You'll see.

Things to know: Hohenheim met Trisha 130-some odd years before canon, so Ed and Al were born in 1789 and 1790, respectively, as opposed to 1899 and 1900, as they were in canon. Their family's dates and Ed not having automail (yet) are pretty much the only things that have changed for the world's set-up. (What will change because of that change, well... XD)

This is 100% from Ed's PoV. So, you know, you people can once again bitch about not knowing what other characters (Roy) are thinking/feeling/what-the-fuck-ever.

Dates will be in the scene breaks at the beginning of each scene, save for some special scenes that take place in front of the Gate.

There will be side stories, of a sort, attached to this series. For this part of the series, there are only two, which I'll mention in the chapters they're attached to. I do not intend to add to that number.

This part of the series was written for the FMA Fandom Challenge on tumblr. My most wonderful artist for the FC is arantxamagnelli! For links to their art, please check one of the other sites, since FFN's profile links are bollocked again.

You can also read this at Archive of Our Own (UN: Batsutousai), tumblr (UN: batshieroglyphics), or LiveJournal (UN: batsutousai).

-0-
Chapter One
-0-

"Welcome back, Alchemist," that freakish white figure said, Ed's stolen arm resting on one white knee, while his stolen leg was curled absently off to one side. Taunting him.

He didn't have time for taunts.

"My brother," he whispered, pleaded, because Al–

A gasp, not quite Ed's name, and an armoured hand reaching for him, before the armour fell to the ground with a clatter, and Ed screamed and screamed, but Al–

Al didn't come back, that time.

The white figure stared at him – or, Ed assumed it was staring; it was hard to tell with something that didn't have a face – for a long moment, before holding up two hands – Ed's own and one white absence – in a sort of 'what can you do' gesture. "He ran out of time."

"NO!" Ed shouted, reached out too far with his left hand, and almost overbalanced when he dropped his crutch. He forced himself to straighten, wincing when the peg dug into the stump of his left leg, reminding him that he still needed to replace the cup that was supposed to help distribute the pressure.

"He ran out of time," the white figure repeated, heartless. Merciless. "That's the rule."

"Since when?!" Ed snarled, catching his fist in the tattered edge of his shirt, to keep from waving it at the white figure and unbalancing himself again. "I don't remember that rule!"

The white figure moved its hands in that 'what can you do' gesture again, and replied, "It's not my job to tell you the rules, Alchemist."

"You monster!" Ed shouted, couldn't stop himself from starting forward, half thinking to just punch the figure in its face, because what did it fucking matter what punishments it had in store for him? Al was dead.

Without his crutch to help him keep his balance, when his peg leg slipped against the white non-ground, Ed toppled over to the side, gritting his teeth against a shout of pain when the impact jostled the poorly bandaged cut on his side.

"Pitiful," the white figure said, and Ed glared up to find it standing over him.

"Come down here and say that to my face, you–"

"I will make you a deal, Alchemist," it said, interrupting him.

Ed choked on his insult, narrowed his eyes and shoved himself into a sitting position, so he didn't have to look up quite so far to glare distrustfully at the blank white face. "You don't make deals," he returned flatly, because the figure had always ever made its 'trades' without warning, taking whatever it pleased and then standing back and grinning, so wide and cruel, at the outcome.

A wide, knowing smile split the empty face, and the hair on the back of Ed's neck stood straight on end. "I'm making an exception. Don't you want to hear my deal, Alchemist? You can save your brother."

Ed clenched his hand into a fist, felt his heart skip a beat, before speeding up; Al. Was there anything he wouldn't do to have his brother back?

He licked his lips, tried to ignore the queasy roll of his stomach at the mere idea of making a deal with the figure, and nodded. "I'm listening."

It crouched in front of him, putting them more on level, and Ed stared into the white emptiness where eyes should have been. "Your father's dead," it said, completely unconcerned for the way Ed's breath caught.

His useless father was dead? Was that why he'd never come home? Had Ed...hated him for...nothing?

"He left things unfinished, things that are now left to you, Alchemist, as the last of his blood."

Ed swallowed down emotions he couldn't deal with and shook his head. "What things?"

It smiled, wide and cruel in a way that made Ed want to scurry backwards, even though he already knew how difficult that was with only two good limbs, and that showing fear was... He couldn't. He wouldn't.

"You can't expect me to hand you all the answers. If you solve this for us, I'll return your brother to you, body and soul, exactly as he is now." It motioned behind Ed.

Every one of his instincts told him turning his back on the white figure was a terrible idea, but he couldn't keep from twisting, catching his weight on his hand and wincing at the burn of his side as he looked over his shoulder and–

"Al," he whispered, because his brother was sitting there, hair long and way too fucking thin, watching Ed with wide, broken eyes. "Alphonse!"

A hand grabbed his shoulder and yanked him back around before he could do more than think about getting up and stumbling over to his brother. He found himself nose-to-non-existent-nose with the figure, and couldn't quite stop a snarl. Its smile just widened, as violent and cruel as anything in the real world. "That's your price," it told him, its tone making Ed want to scurry away again. "Finish what Van Hohenheim abandoned, and you'll get your brother back. But, should you fail..."

Ed swallowed, didn't want to know what his price would be, then.

It patted his cheek with his own right hand, smile mocking, before standing up and stepping away, while the sound of stone creaking open filled the empty space.

Ed twisted, turned, reached out his hand toward his brother and didn't care that he toppled over and knocked his head against the white floor, just wanted– needed–

"ALPHONSE!"

-March 1806-

Ed opened his eyes and stared down at the wood his cheek was resting against for a long moment, before letting out a snarl and shoving himself into a sitting position. That hadn't gone at all like he'd hoped. (Although, if he was being honest, it had gone better than he'd feared.) Al was still trapped over there, and would continue to be until Ed figured out what the hell their father had been up to before he'd died.

Grumbling uncomplimentary things under his breath, Ed turned to look for his crutch, only to frown when he came up empty.

"What?" he murmured, raising his eyes toward the table he'd shoved out of the way of the massive array he'd drawn in a desperate attempt to go after his brother. With some minor difficulty, he managed to slide his way over to the closest edge and, gritting his teeth, pulled himself to his feet, then used his height advantage to scan the mess of what had been a dining room, before he'd broken in and repurposed it.

Still no sign of his crutch.

"I just had it," Ed muttered, looking down at the array, because he'd used the chalk hidden in the bottom to draw the array at his feet. He'd had it in that white world, too–

Ed carefully leant back against the edge of the table so he could scratch at his head. "Did I...leave it there?" he mumbled. It wasn't unusual for him to misplace things – Al had often joked that he'd lose his head if it wasn't attached – but he hadn't thought it possible to leave non-living objects in that world. Although, if the Door was the physical form of whatever being decided the equivalency for any alchemic transmutation, with the white being serving as some sort of Doorkeeper, or toll-taker, it wasn't completely outside the realm of acceptability that a non-living, physical object could be left behind as a sort of toll.

Not that Ed had intended his bleeding crutch to be a toll for...whatever had just happened. Letting him go unscathed?

He let out a laugh that wasn't even a little amused, because he honestly hadn't cared if he made it back, while he'd been drawing this array. Had actually sort of expected to pay the toll for his passage with his own life, because, at least then, he'd be with Al again. And Mum, too, although she'd become far less important than his brother, after all their struggles.

"Hah. And look where selflessness got me this time," he said to the empty space where armour should have been standing next to him, tutting at his absent-mindedness and already looking around for materials to make him a new crutch. "What am I supposed to do now?"

Find out what Hohenheim had left unfinished, he supposed. Which required him to move, and not get caught by what sounded suspiciously like the residents returning from church.

Muttering curses under his breath, Ed balanced himself on the table edge, then kicked out with his peg leg, knocking it into a bucket full of water he'd set out earlier, hard enough to tip it over onto the array. The water splashed over the chalk, erasing enough to hopefully keep anyone from realising there was someone practicing human transmutation in the area. Assuming any of the locals were proficient enough with alchemy to recognise the array for what it was, or make a note of it to share with whatever local alchemists there were. (All unlikely, given, but still not worth the risk, as Ed had learnt years ago.)

While the water spread across the floor, Ed pulled one of his few remaining pieces of chalk out of his pocket and turned to sketch a quick array on the edge of the table, then pressed his fingers against it and transmuted a replacement crutch.

With something to lean on again, Ed took one last, quick look at the remainders of the array, deemed it sufficiently erased, then hobbled as quickly as he could for the back door and the screen of woods that would, he hoped, protect him from any of the residents who thought to look out after him.

Once in the trees, he had to slow down, keeping a sharp eye out for anything that might trip him up, and gingerly checking ahead with his crutch for places that might make him lose his footing. All things that Al used to do for him, calling back warnings and spewing apologies any time Ed tripped despite the warnings, rushing to help him up while Ed laughed and insisted he was fine, even when he wasn't.

Somehow, he made it to the river safely, and made his slow, careful way across it, before finally sitting down to rest.

"Now what?" he whispered to himself, hated the silence where there should have been some sort of response from his brother. Mocking, because Ed was talking to himself again, and 'This is why people think you're crazy, Brother.' Or helpful, pointing out the more logical next step; usually getting Ed food, or medical attention.

Medical attention. Hells, if Al was here, he'd have Ed's head for not taking proper care of the wound on his side.

It was only as Ed was gingerly twisting to get at the wound, that he realised that it didn't hurt, and he followed that up by giving up on caution and yanking his shirt up, catching it between his teeth to free his hand so he could pull the bandaging out of the way to see.

Where the wound should have been was a long-healed scar, the blood on the bandaging and smeared across his skin already mostly dried dark brown and flaking away.

"What?" he said, his shirt slipping from between his teeth and blocking his view. Not only had he made it out of that other world without losing any more body parts, but he'd been healed? That was–

"This makes no sense," Ed murmured as he pulled his shirt off completely, so he could get the bandaging off. "There was nothing equivalent about that transaction, unless the trade was Al, but he was already back over there before I made my way, so that shouldn't have counted. Which means that freak had to take something from me."

He dropped the unwound bandaging into the river, catching the trailing edge with his foot and leaving it for the current to clean, even as he did a quick check of himself, trying to determine what had been taken in exchange for his safe passage and good health.

Nothing.

Something very like terror was beginning to unfurl in Ed's stomach, and he swallowed down the taste of panic on his tongue as he leant over to grab his shirt off the ground.

"Okay," he said to himself as he put his shirt back on, the noise of his own voice painfully reassuring. "So I assume I traded something, I just can't determine what, and there's no point worrying over it right this moment. That white freak said something about Hohenheim leaving something unfinished, and it being my job to finish it. And then I get Al back, safe. Whole."

His stomach churned again, because what was the price?

He took a deep breath and leant over to catch the edge of the bandage, holding it up to give it a quick glance-over; he'd left his suitcase and most of his belongings with Al's abandoned armour body, as he didn't have any way to carry it while also being able to use his crutch, so he needed to recycle as much as he could until he could restock.

"Fine," he decided, before scrunching it up in a ball and squeezing it as dry as he could. Then he started to get up, shoving the damp ball into a pocket, but the ache of his stump reminded him he needed to fix his peg leg, and since he was surrounded by trees...

Twenty minutes later, his peg leg repaired and refitted comfortably – a thousand times harder without Al there to manage the buckles for him; he'd need to redesign the set-up if it took him too long to find Hohenheim – Ed was up and following the river out of the woods, hoping it led him to a town or village or something. Somewhere he could get supplies, because it was a long trip back to the last place he remembered Al saying he'd heard mention of their missing father.

He allowed himself a sigh at the task before him, but nothing more. After all, this was for Al.

-0-

It took Ed two days to begin to understand what he'd traded.

It began with finding himself less-than-hungry, and never quite feeling worse than a little out of breath after climbing a hill, despite the familiar strain travelling usually put on his body. He could eat and sleep – more than Al'd ever managed, and it would always ache to remember that – but neither action seemed to affect him in any particular way.

Which, well, given his limited supplies and not having a second person to keep an eye out, not to mention the ever-dwindling purse of coins, these new discoveries weren't a bad thing. In fact, being able to travel for extended periods of time, moving at a steady pace and not having to break for a meal, served him well in returning to that village in a timely fashion. (And he was all about timely fashions; the sooner he had Al back, the better for both of them. And not just because Ed needed someone to act as a barrier between himself and the rest of humanity.)

Necessary or not, he did take breaks, mostly because it felt weird not to, but also because the peg leg would start chafing after a few hours of walking, and whatever weird shit was going on with him didn't really fix that issue, though the rash he'd often got from wearing it for long periods hadn't yet made a comeback.

So, when it got painful enough that he had to stop walking for a bit, he'd find a spot out of the sun or foot traffic and either take out a bit of food for a snack, or take a brief nap.

It was one of the latter sort of stops, eyes already closed and body just starting to drift off to sleep, that Ed felt hands on him, going for the coin purse shoved in the left pocket of his trousers.

He reacted on instinct, lashing out with what appendages he could, and feeling the rather satisfying connection of both his leg and peg leg hitting something, while his hand caught the sleeve of the arm going after his money and yanked as he opened his eyes to glare at his attacker.

He got the hand away from his money, but found himself faced with a man wearing a furious glare, and holding a knife in his left hand, which shone in the late evening sun that filtered through the tree Ed had stopped under for his nap.

"You little shit," the man snarled, while someone else made a pitiful noise beyond him. "That was stupid. Shoulda just stayed asleep."

Ed reached across with his arm, trying to grab the knife or knock it away, he wasn't certain, but it hardly mattered, because the man just caught his wrist in one hand to stop it, then brought the knife across Ed's throat.

Pain shot through his nerves, so very like that terrible moment when he'd lost his leg and arm, but, this time, it was followed by a sort of numbing cold, and Ed thought, a bit detachedly, about how crap it was that his only shirt was ruined, now. Which was a ridiculous last thought, but there you were.

He didn't know what he'd been expecting about death, but he was pretty sure it wasn't a brief moment of blackness, before he opened his eyes again to find the same man still leaning over him, his furious expression twisting with horror. He also didn't expect the burn of his throat – no longer quite so agonising, and getting better with each beat of his heart, too loud in his ears – or the sudden return of hunger that had been missing for days.

"Shouldn'ta done that," he rasped, and his voice sounded a wreck, blood dribbling out past the words and over his lips, down his chin. But he was so very clearly alive, despite it all.

Alive and starved. But not for the grain mix he had in the shoulder bag he'd made out of some abandoned laundry, he realised. Rather, for the life's blood pulsing all-too-obviously in the man's throat.

He didn't think, didn't consider, just reached out, running completely on instinct, and caught the man's shirt, pulling him in with a strength that Ed had never known he'd possessed, and leaning up to dig his canines – unnaturally lengthened and sharp enough to pierce flesh with very little effort, it turned out – into the man's throat, directly over the pulse of life.

The man screamed – terror and pain both – and shoved against Ed, tried to squirm free, and really just causing Ed's teeth to tear his skin, let loose too much blood, too fast.

The man fell silent first, and then limp. And, as his blood turned cold in Ed's mouth, he realised what had just happened.

He shoved the dead body off of himself and pushed and shoved at the ground to get away. He was sticky all over, and the taste of iron coated his tongue.

"Whatthehellwhatthehellwhatthehe–?"

Ed snapped his mouth shut and tried to breathe in through his nose, but all he could smell was blood, and he just barely managed to twist to one side before he threw up.

Bile and the lunch he'd eaten hours ago splattered across the grass, but there was no sign of the blood he'd ingested, and Ed tried to draw a breath, caught it on a sob, and fisted his hand in the grass.

Blood on his tongue, coating his lips and chin; he'd taken a life, utterly without being aware of it, but still. What sort of monster had he become?

Someone screamed, and Ed looked up, toward them, found a woman and a couple young children staring at him. The woman looked terrified – horrified, sickened; Ed completely understood – for a long moment, before she shouted, "Monster!"

As she turned back toward the little hamlet Ed had skirted around the edge of before taking his nap, he realised he needed to go. No time to process or clean himself off, just move as fast as he could, away from the pitchforks and religious ramblings that he and Al had been faced with more than a couple of times over their years of travel, either because of alchemy, or because someone realised Al's armour had been empty.

He found his crutch, half under the man who'd tried to kill him, and caught it and his bag, grimacing at the blood splattered across both of them, but in too much of a rush to be picky about their state.

He hurried away, toward a cluster of trees, moving as fast as he dared, and paying more attention to the way ahead, than the possibility of pursuit; he'd learnt a long time ago the dangers of not looking where he was going, given his disabilities.

He found a stream before he reached the edge of the woods, and he fell gratefully to his knees on the bank, dropping his crutch so he could rinse himself off, splashing water everywhere and leaving a line of pale red to rush away downstream, as far away from him as the water could take the evidence.

His shirt was left to soak in the water, held down by a rock, and Ed finally leant back, touching his fingers to his throat. The skin felt a little over-sensitive to the touch, like a wound he'd only just ripped the scab off of, but that was the only sign that the skin had been slit open with a knife not twenty minutes before.

"What's happened to me?" he whispered to the empty wood around him, words laced with terror and edged with a sob. "What has that freak done to me?"

Because he had no doubt this had something to do with that white figure and the equivalence he'd been so certain he'd owed, yet hadn't been able to calculate.

But what did...drinking blood and (apparently) immortality have to do with being sent after Hohenheim's work?

'Your father's dead,' the white figure had said. 'He left things unfinished, things that are now left to you, Alchemist, as the last of his blood.'

Hohenheim had died, and the figure wanted Ed to finish what he'd left. Except Ed was the last person left, apparently, with his useless father dead and Al trapped in that other world. Which meant, if he died...

"Well," Ed whispered, "when put like that, it does make some sense. But the...blood?"

Equivalence. A life for a life. Keeping the balance of blood in his own body; whatever was spilled needed to be replaced. Just like how any water sweated or cried needed to be replaced.

"I'm going to be sick again," Ed whispered, closing his eyes. Because making sense out of this horror did nothing for the emotional reaction.

Fuck. As soon as he'd finished whatever Hohenheim had failed to do, he was going to punch that white monster in the face. And then yank his brother well away from that place, hope he never learned exactly what Ed had had to do to save him.

And then Ed caught himself laughing, covered his face with his hand and tried to pretend he didn't feel the water splattering against his palm. Because Al would almost certainly take one look at him and know exactly what Ed had done, because they were brothers. They were everything to each other, and Al had always known Ed better than he'd known himself.

Well, perhaps it was only equivalent; Ed could save his brother, but only at the cost of his own soul. What did that one religion popular in the west call it? 'Making a deal with the devil'?

He certainly had, at that.

A bit distantly, Ed wondered how sane he'd be when he finally saved Al.

(He supposed it depended how many more times he died.)

-July 1807-

It took Ed over a year to track down Hohenheim's corpse. To be fair, he was trying to condense years worth of travel into the shortest time possible, but it still felt like it had taken forever, especially since he didn't, actually, know when his no-good father had died, only that he had.

Along the way, since he was asking about the man, hearing about him was a bit difficult to avoid, and he discovered a lot about the man that he'd never known.

For example, apparently the cold eyes and too-wide back had hidden a lot of helpless smiles and a rather meek man who shied away from fighting, but would always step in to keep someone from getting hurt. He also, by far too many accounts, survived all manner of wounds, including such that should have killed him, red light sparking along the wounds, which healed in an instant.

The stories were too widespread to be myths, and Ed didn't want to, but he slowly began believing a lot of them. Most of them. Helpless smiles and helping people, because that seemed a bit more the sort of person Mum would have wanted to have a family with, certainly. But the shying away from fighting? Fuck, Ed was disabled and he had never once shied away from a fight. (Which, in retrospect, may not always be the best way to respond to things, especially given he no longer had a second person to watch his back.)

And, while it might seem odd to others, believing his father had been some sort of immortal had been the easiest bit of the stories to swallow, likely because he, himself, was currently immortal. Though, he did have to wonder, a bit, about limitations, since Hohenheim had eventually died, which had resulted in Ed's own curse, in a way.

And his curse was clearly different from Hohenheim's, because he'd nicked himself enough time in the year plus since that first incident to observe his skin quietly healing over, no show of red energy. And not a one of the stories ever mentioned anything about his father drinking blood, though Ed had discovered that he couldn't seem to stop himself from attacking whoever had attacked him once he'd come back from that brief blackness that was as close to death as he could get. If he didn't actively die, he could hold off the weird hunger for blood for a while, but it got harder the longer he left it, and normal food or drink would just make him sick if he needed blood when he ingested any.

Animal blood, he'd discovered on accident, could stave off the hunger for a bit – the length of time depended on how hungry he'd been, and how much he...drank – but it never seemed to fix it the way human blood did. Which was...more than a little heartbreaking, because Ed had been so fucking happy when the hunger left him because of a particularly bloody steak he hadn't been able to refuse, but then it had come back that night, and he'd nearly started sobbing into the nice sheets of the first real bed he'd allowed himself to chance in over two months.

He'd had a lot of time and a lot of reason to experiment, so he'd done a few tests between signs of civilisation, trying all sorts of tests with animal blood – still gross, but far less stomach-turning than killing humans, and he'd done so enough times, by then, to know that truth – and cutting himself, then immediately licking up the blood that spilled before the wound healed itself. (Always a delay, just enough to lose a noticeable amount of blood, as though the white freak who'd done this to him was trying to break him, or some bullshit. Not that Ed would put that against the figure.)

More animal blood kept the hunger at bay longer, and if he managed to catch all the blood from his own wounds, he didn't end up feeling any hungrier, which was reassuring, but not wholly a solution, given he couldn't always stop to lick his wounds until they healed.

Still, it was enough knowledge to reach the village where Hohenheim had died without resorting to killing any random strangers because he'd nicked himself on some bramble one too many times. And he'd learnt fairly quickly to kill an animal and drink its blood before he entered a settlement, so he could eat like a normal person without being sick right after. (Even better, he could bring that animal into town with him and trade the meat and pelt for room and board, which made up, some, for his not needing to eat, but taking food from those who did to keep up appearances.)

After he and the innkeeper had finished bartering over the three rabbits Ed'd brought in and he'd been given a glass of water, Ed asked the familiar, "So, any guys named Hohenheim come through?"

The innkeeper immediately started nodding, which wasn't unusual in the places where his father had stayed to help out a bit. "Deity, more like," he insisted.

Ed blinked, couldn't keep from raising one eyebrow and shooting the guy a disbelieving look, because what? Immortal, sure, he was used to that line, but deity?

"Ya think me some poor country fool," the innkeeper said, but he didn't look particularly cross about it. "We're used to those reactions, I assure ya, but not a one o' us what was here when the wind storm came'll ever disbelieve."

A wind storm? Ed had heard of Hohenheim facing bands of bandits, violent animals, and mad alchemists. Repairing broken objects, too, was pretty common, or clearing roads blocked by a tree or a rock slide, but never directly facing an act of nature.

He leant forward and tried to look like he was more interested than sceptical as he said, "So, go on, then. What's a bit of a wind storm got to do with you calling Van Hohenheim a deity?"

The man perked up, clearly excited at the chance to share the story. "Oh, this weren't just any wind storm. We thought it were, at first, tacked down anything that might get blown away a bit, sent the little 'uns and smaller animals indoors, just in case, 'cause we've lost a coupla chickens and a cat ta winds before, ya know."

Ed nodded, even though he actually didn't know; strong wind storms hadn't been common in the border village he'd grown up in, and they weren't particularly common anywhere he'd travelled. Too many mountains and trees acting as a screen against strong winds building up, he'd read in one book or another, when he and Al had found their way to Amestris' capital city a few years before.

"Glad we did, mind, 'cause this weren't no normal wind storm. Started out normal, but then the clouds started reachin' down, right towards the middle o' town. And Van Hohenheim, he'd only just arrived a coupla hours before, he were outta his chair soon as ol' Bob said that. Ran out ta the street and threw up his hands towards them clouds, and there were this great blindin' o' light, and then the clouds done and picked him right up and all jerked sideways right outta town. Landed the whole bit in the middle o' the woods–" he pointed in the opposite direction from where Ed had come "–and tore up all sorta a' trees, threw 'em all o'er the place. Took us near a week ta cut through and find Van lying out in the middle o' the mess, all peaceful like.

"Can't imagine what woulda happened to this town if those clouds'd touched ground here, but ya get a pretty good idea, ya see the clearin'. Coupla folks started calling Van a god, and I'm not so sure I disbelieve, 'cause he done an impossible thing for us, and he were aged so much when we found him. Clothin' all torn, but not a scratch on him, save his hair'd gone white and his skin wrinkled like he'd done and died a' old age, not fightin' winds and clouds."

"He was human, I assure you," Ed insisted.

The innkeeper snorted. "Know that for sure, do ya? Ya know all them stories 'bout the gods comin' down and travellin' like humans for a time, doin' good. Maybe he were one o' those."

Ed shook his head. "Yeah, but he had two sons, and they're human all through." Well, if you didn't count his own curse and the animal blood staving off his unnatural hunger. And Al being trapped in that other world, waiting for Ed to uphold his end of the bargain with the white figure.

"How d'ya know they ain't demigods, and're jest hidin' it?" the innkeeper challenged.

Ed let out a short bark of a laugh and pointed to his empty right sleeve. "I look like a bleedin' demigod to you?"

The innkeeper's eyes widened, then narrowed, and he leant forward, across the table, staring at Ed's face. "Bless my soul," he whispered after a moment, voice gone reverent, "ya got the same eyes. Gold as the sun."

Ed shifted, always felt a little weird when people spotted his eyes and realised how weird they were, how like his father's.

And then the man drew back and fluttered his hands a bit weirdly, asked, "Ta what do we owe the honour–"

"No," Ed interrupted, because that was creepy. "I'm not some freaking part-god, and my father wasn't a god, he was just an alchemist. He did some crazy shit to save people sometimes, but he was still human. Died and everything, probably just used too much energy trying to dissipate the storm and ended up ageing and dying. It's not impossible."

Okay, actually, it kind of was, but if Hohenheim had some sort of immortality, just like Ed, it made a weird sort of sense that he could over-strain whatever energy source was keeping him alive, tap into his own life energy to keep going, and eventually age himself. Right?

(Not that Ed knew what sort of energy source would grant immortality, but, then, it was clear there were plenty of things about both his father and the laws of equivalence that he didn't understand, if Hohenheim had managed to hold off nature.)

"I'm just– Look, okay, my brother's sick, same thing that killed our mum, and I know our father had some fair bit of medical knowledge, went looking for a cure for her. I was hoping to talk to him, or at least get a look at whatever journals or notes he might have had, if he didn't finish his research, see if I couldn't sort it myself." It was the best excuse he'd come up with to explain why he was looking so desperately for Hohenheim, and it was fairly close to the truth – Mum had died from an illness, and deciphering Hohenheim's notes and completing his work would save Al – and it had won him plenty of sympathy over his travels, got a number of people to share titbits about his father he doubted they would have otherwise. Rarely useful titbits, mind, but still.

"So I'm not... I'm not here to save you from weird weather patterns or a plague of locusts or whatever. I'm just looking for a way to save my little brother. He's– He's all I have left, now." And that had been true for years, but saying it aloud always hurt, a bit, and this was the first time he'd said it to someone who also knew the last of his blood family was gone.

The innkeeper's expression had fallen as Ed spoke, but he didn't look disappointed, so much as a little bit of pity and a lot of shared grief, as though he could ever hope to know what Hohenheim's death meant for Ed. "I'm sorry, then, that ya had ta find out this way," he offered, an apology that Ed simply shook his head at, hoped the guy took it as not being able to speak through his emotions, rather than the slightly callous disregard it was. "And I'm sorry he ain't here ta help, but we did save the pack he left behind when he went after the storm."

Ed straightened, didn't have to pretend relief at that news. "Where is it?"

"Village head's got it up at his. But he went out with the huntin' party. Be a few hours yet 'fore they're back. We buried Van in the woods where we found him, though, if ya wanna visit with him?"

Ed desperately wanted to say no, to just ask directions to the right house and break in to grab Hohenheim's stuff. But, well, they'd expect him to head up to the grave and see it at least once before he left, might as well be before he got his hands on his father's journals and got distracted trying to break whatever code he'd used.

So he nodded in agreement, took a moment to put his bag up in the room his rabbits had bought him, then followed the innkeeper's directions up to the edge of the woods and a sign that pointed to a well-travelled path.

The path branched off a couple times – hunter or animal trails, they looked like, but the main path was too obvious for him to get confused – before passing under an odd sort of archway and opening up into a clearing that was pretty close to the size of one of the houses down in the village, with trees and other ground debris thrown around the edges, forming a massive sort of wall, the only break in which was the man-made one that Ed had just stepped through.

Given it had been at least sixteen months since Hohenheim's death, based on when he'd first heard about it from the white figure, Ed wasn't surprised to find the clearing covered in grass, save a narrow path leading from the entrance to a barren patch in the centre. There was a ring of little golden flowers Ed didn't know the name for around the barren patch, which was weird, but Ed assumed they'd been planted by someone. Someone had certainly, he saw as he stepped closer, taken to leaving offerings of cheap food and alcohol and a couple flowers at the end of the path.

He rolled his eyes a bit, then looked past the flowers and such at the barren patch.

Ed had never been one for talking to graves, but he'd also never had to stand over one alone, and the ache of Al's absence was just so great, in that moment, that he couldn't stop himself from opening his mouth and saying, "Are you happy?"

He snapped his mouth shut, gritted his teeth, but now that he'd started speaking, he couldn't stop the words, so he clenched his fist around his crutch and let them flow:

"Is this what you wanted, when you left? Mum died and me and Al just fell apart. Old Man Jeeves down the way, he tried to help, and Gran Emma, she'd check in all the time, bring us food when her hips would let her. Bringing Mum back was the only thing that kept us going, and we went and failed at that!

"And where were you?! Playing good neighbour or some sort of deity to strangers! You abandoned us! I bet you never even cared, not once. Just happy to leave us behind! I mean, seriously, immortality, huh? Takes a lot out of you to stick around in the same place all the time, letting people find out about you.

"Well, good on you, then, finally croaking. Leaving me whatever mess you failed at!" He choked out a laugh that felt raw. "You just had to go and die, didn't you? Couldn't even sort your last duty out on your own, had to leave it to me, had to fail me and Al all over again." He closed his eyes, swallowed against a block in his throat, and quietly asked, "Why couldn't you, just once, have cared about us, as much as you did about everyone else in the world?"

"Mr Hohenheim?" someone called from behind Ed.

He twisted, turned to look, and found a girl who looked to be ten or eleven standing just down the narrow path from him, a handful of wildflowers clenched in one hand and her eyes gone wide. "No," Ed replied, shaking his head. "I'm Ed, his son."

She blinked a couple of times, then said, "Oh." And then she stepped forward and knelt next to Ed to set the wildflowers with the other offerings. "Ya didn't bring him anythin'?"

Ed looked away from the barren patch, toward the impossible wall of trees. He felt a bit wrong-footed; raw and aching and still so angry. But, too, so very lonely.

He missed Al.

"Don't really have any way to carry anything," he managed to force out, kept his face turned away so she wouldn't realise the attempt at humour was only in his voice. Assuming he'd managed that much.

"Well, I'm sure he'd be grateful ya came at all," the girl offered.

He scoffed, then, and turned away from the grave. "I somehow doubt that."

"Yer rude!" the girl snapped. "Mr Hohenheim were a great man! He saved all our lives, and is deservin' o' our respect! Especially yers, since he's yer dad!"

Ed glanced back over his shoulder at her furious expression, debated just walking away for a brief moment, but he didn't really want to chance losing access to Hohenheim's journals because some kid spread it around that he was actually glad their saviour had kicked the bucket. (Sort of.) So he sighed and turned back to face her properly. "He may have been my father, but he left before he could become my dad; this is the first time I've seen him in over ten years, and it's his grave. I get that you people think he's great, but the only memory I have of him, is his back and the slamming of the door as he left."

The girl looked away, her expression twisting with confusion and anger. "Then why come at all? Ta spit on his grave?" she snapped, though there was far less bite in her words than before.

"I'm hoping he left something to help me save my brother's life. He's sick, and my mum said, before she died of the same illness, that my father had left to find a cure," Ed lied. "I didn't know he'd died until the innkeeper told me."

"Oh," the girl whispered, sounding heartbroken. When she looked up at him, there were tears in her eyes. "I-I didn't know."

Ed shrugged and turned to leave the clearing. "And I wouldn't have spat on his grave, anyway. No point."

He thought she'd stayed behind, until he was back in the wood and she popped up next to him, walking just the right speed to keep pace with his careful steps.

"Yes?"

"Yer lookin' fer his journals, yeah?"

"Yeah," Ed agreed, seeing no reason to hide that. "Innkeeper said the village leader's got them."

The girl nodded. "My da. I know where he keeps 'em."

Ed couldn't quite bite back a laugh, and it came out sounding a little startled. "Who was it was just saying something about respecting their father?"

She flushed and ducked her head. "Da won't mind. And they should be yers, anyway, Mr Hohenheim bein' yer dad 'n all, right?"

"Right," Ed agreed, because that was true enough.

She grinned at him, then, wide and bright and showing off a missing canine tooth. "I'm Joann!" she offered.

"Nice to meet you, Joann," Ed returned, amused by the rather abrupt change in temperament; he was pretty certain he'd been just as bad at her age, honestly.

She proceeded to tell him the story of Hohenheim saving the village again, then moved on to talking about the villagers, so that, by the time they reached her house, Ed felt rather like he knew a bit about everyone that lived nearby.

The bag Hohenheim had left behind had been stored in a dark room near the back of her house, shoved in a corner like it had been forgotten. "Da said somethin' 'bout not bein' able ta read the books," Joann said as she held up the bag.

Ed shifted his weight so he could grab the bag, then tossed the strap over his head. "He was an alchemist, Hohenheim, so he probably kept everything in code. Got somewhere I can sit down?"

She nodded and stepped past him. "This way. What's an alchemist?"

Ed blinked at her back a few times, surprised into inaction. When she frowned back at him, he cleared his throat. "Alchemy is a science. Turning one object into another with similar properties."

"Sounds like magic," she informed him, before continuing walking.

Ed stepped a bit quicker than normal to catch her up, scoffing. "Magic," he spat, and she shot him a startled look. "Alchemy is a science. Not...hocus pocus."

She giggled at that and pointed to what appeared to be the dining room table. "Can ya do it, yer alchemy?"

Ed huffed and sat at the table, setting his crutch aside so he could take Hohenheim's bag off his head. "Of course. My brother and I both studied it."

She hopped up onto the seat across from him and leant forward over the table, catching her chin between her hands. "Can ya show me?"

"Have you got any paper? Scraps, like?"

"Yeah!" She jumped up and raced from the room.

Ed snorted and turned his attention to the bag, grimacing a bit when he realised the tie had been knotted a couple times; that would take him a while to get open.

He'd managed to mostly get the first knot undone by the time Joann came back with a handful of paper scraps, and he set the bag aside and pulled out the pencil he kept with his store of chalk, then proceeded to use alchemy to fold the papers into various animals for her. (After the first one – and the resulting disbelieving gasp, followed by a delighted grin – she'd started suggesting the animals, and Ed was glad he didn't actually need to know how the alchemy folded the paper, only the end result he wanted, because some of them looked ridiculously complicated.)

Her father got home as they were running out of paper, and the innkeeper must have warned him about Ed, because he didn't seem to be surprised to see him, and greeted him with, "So, yer Van's son."

Ed had shot him a speculative look, because he didn't sound nearly as quick to believe that as the innkeeper and Joann had been – it was oddly gratifying to not be taken at his word right off – but as soon as the man saw his eyes, his own widened and he breathed out something that sounded worryingly like a short prayer, or whatever. Ed didn't sigh, and hoped he'd managed to keep the grimace off his face as he nodded. "Ed," he said, setting down his pencil and twisting to hold out his hand.

The man was still for a moment, before reaching out and taking Ed's hand to shake. He had a stronger grip than most people used when they realised Ed was missing an arm, like they thought its lack meant he would fall apart at too rough a touch, which was a nice change. "Richard. We had no idea Van had children, but there weren't really time ta talk 'fore the winds started up."

"Hm," was all Ed would let himself say in response as he withdrew his hand and picked his pencil back up to finish drawing his array. Then he activated it, and Joann let out another delighted laugh and clapped, while Richard let out a shocked noise. "It's alchemy," Ed said as he handed the rabbit across to Joann. "Same thing my father used to save your village, but he was way better than I'll probably ever be."

"Alchemy," Richard repeated. "I remember hearin' o' such from a travellin' merchant when I were younger, but I've never seen it. He said it were a science practised in the city?"

"It's a science, yeah, not magic," Ed agreed, setting the remaining few papers and his pencil aside and smiling a bit at Joann's clear pleasure over the figures he'd made; it had been a long time since he'd created things with alchemy just because it would make someone else smile, and it was actually quite nice to do so again, especially since Joann so clearly enjoyed it. "And I don't know I'd say it's only practised in the city, because I've met country alchemists, learnt from one, even, but they do tend to congregate in the cities, share their research and teach hopefuls. That sort of thing." He shrugged.

Richard let out a noncommittal hum as he leant down next to Ed and picked up Hohenheim's bag. "I don't pretend ta understand anythin' 'bout alchemy, nor 'bout healin' illnesses, but it is true enough that Van left behind some notebooks that none o' us that looked could make sense a'."

"Went snooping?" Ed asked, more amused than anything else.

Richard coughed and set the bag on the table, then started working on the knots. "I'd been hopin' ta learn more of him. Perhaps, if he had family, ta inform them. Though it's true that some wanted proof o' his divinity."

Ed snorted at the last. "Wouldn't have found anything."

"So you say," Richard returned, his tone so mild, Ed was certain he was one of the ones who believed Hohenheim was some sort of god. Or whatever otherworldly being they were marking him as.

Somehow, he kept from snorting again, or rolling his eyes.

Richard got the last knot loose and opened the bag properly, then reached in and pulled out a worn leather-covered book. "Here's the one that were on the top o' the bag," he offered with the book. As Ed accepted it, Richard added, "Pretty sure it's not written in Amestrisan, mind."

Ed frowned at that and opened the book, only to find what looked like scribbles, sort of, more than letters. Another alphabet?

Fuck. How was he supposed to decipher this?

Ed grit his teeth, feeling a little like Al's soul was slipping through his fingers all over again. He'd been so close. And now he was faced with a journal he couldn't begin to guess at how to translate? He couldn't even be certain if it was another language, or some sort of code Hohenheim had created. (Though, given none of the books he'd left behind when he'd left had used these scribbles, despite his occasional handwritten notes about his own studies in the margins, it wasn't likely to be a code. Ed didn't think.)

"No good?" Richard guessed.

Fuck. If only he had an idea of where to look for a translation. Someone he could go to and ask for help.

Ed stopped breathing for a moment, staring down at the scribbles with wide eyes, because there was someone he had access to who would know. And while the last thing he wanted was to be even deeper in debt to the white freak, if it wanted him to solve this puzzle and finish Hohenheim's duty, it would at least give him a hint.

(If not, well, it would be nice to have someone to yell at about this curse the freak had set on him. Which could go so horribly wrong, true, but Ed wasn't certain he cared after a year of trying to hunt something – anything – down, while also being forced to kill people who attacked him on the road; there was a point when the potential danger was outweighed by the current stressors, evidently.)

"I...might know someone who can translate this," Ed said, letting the book fall closed. "Don't really want to deal with them, but I need this for my brother." He looked up at Richard, found him staring down at the open bag with a troubled expression. "Thank you. This is the closest I've come in almost eight years."

Richard's whole body jerked at that, and then he pushed the opened bag toward Ed. And there was something in his eyes – a little broken, but maybe also relieved? – that Ed couldn't quite figure out, but he smiled as he said, "I'm glad we could be of assistance. After what yer dad did fer us, it's truly a great thing to know we're able to pay him back by helpin' his sons."

Ed managed a smile in response to that as he slipped the book back into the bag, then set about closing the tie in a quick, one-handed knot that he would be able to open easily later on. "I should get back to the inn, go through the rest of this," he said as he stood. "I shouldn't need more than the books, probably, and I can't carry a lot easily; I expect you could find someone who'd get use out of the clothing and whatever else?" he suggested, because that was what Al would have done, and it was quite true that Ed didn't need the extra weight dragging him down during his travels.

Richard's eyes widened and then he smiled, quickly nodding. "Yes, of course," he agreed, so quickly Ed was fairly certain Hohenheim's belongings would be enshrined somewhere.

With that disturbing thought in mind, Ed turned to Joann as he picked the bag up and looped it around his neck and arm. "Good to have met you, Joann."

She grinned at him and held up the paper bird he'd made first. "Yeah! Ya should bring yer brother when he's better 'n show me more alchemy!"

"I will," Ed promised, and meant it.

Richard saw him off, and Ed returned to the inn with the pack. It didn't take long to go through everything in his room and separate out the things that looked like they'd have some value – all books, as he'd guessed – then shove the rest of it back away to return to Richard. Fitting all the books in his own bag took a bit longer, but he managed it without having to make his bag larger, which was good.

He stayed through dinner, returning the bag to Richard when he and Joann came to eat at the inn, and suffering through all manner of people praising Hohenheim.

That night, after everyone should have retired to their beds, Ed slipped out as quietly as he was able. He walked what felt like all night, until he felt he was far enough away – and deep enough in the woods – that no one would track him down and discover what he was doing. Then he set about redrawing the array that was becoming way too familiar, stuffed a couple of his father's books in a quickly alchemised bag, and stepped into the centre.

He knelt, pressing his fingers to the nearest line and stared forward, determinedly unafraid, as the blue light bled purple, and everything went white.

.